


Dream and Desire

by fannishliss



Category: The Sandman (Comics)
Genre: Comment Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-09 23:05:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1151869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fannishliss/pseuds/fannishliss





	Dream and Desire

Morpheus has always been a favorite prey of his sibling, Desire.

Even his life has been forfeit because he has given in.

Yet, he has never been able -- and if he is honest, nor would he wish -- to quell the upswelling of love he feels for certain dreamers: their innocent hopes and fears played out across his realm's fantastical landscape; their melding of the impossible into the designs his older brother Destiny has mapped into their consciousnesses; their aches of yearning and flights of freedom.

He loves them. Their dreams are the substance and sustenance of his Endless existence, as he feeds himself Endlessly back into his work.

Still, when he desires them, it feels like some taloned thing has perched upon his shoulders, like some fanged hunger lurks near his heart and throat.

What could be the harm? But he knows that dreadful answer, has already lived and died those consequences.

He knows all this very well, but tonight Desire is tempting him again. This dreamer is an actor, dreaming in character. He is Hamlet, and in his dream he refuses to let his Ophelia go. He leaps into the grave, past Laertes's raging grief, and kisses his beloved, with all the passion he never dared show in his life of courtly dissembling.

Morpheus is caught as the dreamer Hamlet breathes past his regret and sorrow, softens the dead Ophelia's rigor with the strength of his passionate regard. Morpheus wonders if his sister has ever been convinced to ease her sway as he is now convinced, as the magick of his realm coalesces in the dead girl's chest, as Ophelia heaves her way back into life, her soul called back from beyond, echoing a story Morpheus no longer dares to recall.

Morpheus is pulled by the actor's dream, by the magic of that cathartic moment: huge emotion rips through the dreamer as he feels Ophelia quickening beneath him. Morpheus feels the dreamer's soft lips moving in passionate entreaty: let her live, though she breathe in my own life. Morpheus feels himself respond: the Ophelia is part of him, and he is moving inside her now, kissing the devoted dreamer, giving life to that hope against hope, that the dead can awaken if only loved, not wisely, but so well.

The dreamer smiles, laughing, kissing his lady, and she smiles back, alive and joyful in his arms, and Morpheus feels the rare stirrings of Delight in his heart, kissing back, his dead girl lips now warm with life and love.

The actor hears the roar of applause, his triumph complete. The dream fades, and Morpheus is alone. The gravesite is strewn with flowers, pansies and violets, rue and rosemary, till the last of the dreamer's memory fades.

Morpheus stands alone, his lips still warmed by the living power of love, a power neither he nor his siblings can ever hope to rule.


End file.
